GAIDEN
by Wakuseino
Summary: An 'Original Fanfiction' So to speak. This story shows the events of the games from a completely new POV.
1. INFECTION

**.hack//GAIDEN**  
_**By: Dustin Perrault (Wakuseino)**_  
  
XX/XX/2010  
6 years after the Pluto's Kiss incident  
  
**INFECTION**  
  
  
**Root Town: (Omega Server)**  
  
The Chaos Gate glowed its usual blue hue, slowly spinning around in a stationary circle. People continued buying equipment, purchasing spell scrolls, and of course dungeon crawling, searching for the next plotline. All seemed normal in The World. Of course, this was far from the truth, and he knew it. The character Meirkan stood and faced the Chaos Gate, as two golden rings appeared around him, and he teleported far away from the town he called his home.  
  
**Root Town: Mac Anu (Delta Server)**  
  
The character known as Misakichi appeared in the town of Mac Anu for the first time. She was so proud… Finally, she had managed to become a part of The World. Most people wouldn't know where her name came from, but indeed, she was one of the few people who could distinctly remember the "Twilight of the New Gods" almost 5 years ago.  
  
A lot of the people that had computers these days were actually experiencing computers for the first time. However, a surprisingly few amount of people actually learned from the Pluto's Kiss virus, which had all but wiped out computer technology for years. Thus, The World still managed to hold quite a large fan-base, despite all that had happened.  
  
She looked around the Root Town known as Mac Anu, amazed with the extent of the graphics, far beyond the now ancient graphics of 2003. She gaped in awe, as a boat floated across the river, led by the rowing of a Heavy Swordsman clothed in red, whose hair was a dark blue, held in an anime-style "spiked" hair-cut.  
  
It would be a near impossible hairstyle to pull off in real life, but in a game like The World, it fit perfectly, much like everything else. However, that still didn't change one thing: She was a complete and total newbie here, trapped at Level 1 until she got some help. Thus, she shouted out, allowing everyone in the city to hear… though this also required a lot of effort on the part of the user, as well as hurting the ears of anyone unfortunate enough to have their speaker on. As such, she stepped into a corner before saying anything.  
  
"Umm… does anyone know any good dungeons for a level 1 character? I'm really sorry about shouting like this but… the message board wasn't exactly helpful…" Upon hearing her, someone responded, quickly locating her and heading to her area.  
  
It was a Long Arm who responded. Long Arms, known primarily for their ability with Javelins, Spears, and Archery, were the class that held the best range in The World. In terms of stats, they were actually about average, with a bit more of a focus on physical power than the Twin Blade.  
  
This Long Arm in particular looked to be the resurrection of an ancient Valkyrie of legends, with armour as well as a spear disturbingly reminiscent of Freyja herself. The armour was primarily coloured green, with long, blonde hair tied up in a ponytail, seemingly to keep it out of the way during a battle. Her eyes matched the emerald green of her armour, making her a frightening sight to behold. Her eyes softened up after seeing the little female Wavemaster, obviously new to the game.  
  
"You must be the one shouting, right? Nice to meet you. I might not look it, but I'm actually new here to… though I have come across a nice area for newbies… Oh, by the way, I'm Lenneth on here."  
  
The Long Arm greeted, before handing the Wavemaster a business card.  
  
"This is my member address. With this, we can actually join up in a party."  
  
The Wavemaster nodded fearfully before responding.  
  
"Where did you get that name from? …Lenneth, I mean."  
  
Lenneth paused for a moment before telling her story.  
  
"Actually, I found it on the internet. I did a net search on Valkyries, and the name Lenneth came up… I can't seem to be able to find it in any mythology book, but it's a good name, isn't it?"  
  
"...So it's true that things on the 'net never completely disappear…" The Wavemaster spoke sadly. Lenneth took this opportunity to examine the young female Wavemaster.  
  
As if led by some hidden instinct, most Wavemasters held either blue or silver hair. However, this Wavemaster was an exception, with short brown hair, she somehow managed to look quite ordinary, despite the fact that few other Wavemasters in The World held such a hair colour. She wore no hat, allowing one to see the hair, rather than simply the front part, with everything else covered by the hat.  
  
She was quite small, even for the Wavemasters, who were less than half the height of the largest class in The World, the Heavy Axeman. In fact, the staff she wielded was taller than her, causing an effect that was hard to explain in words. Her clothing was unremarkable, and she held an aura that seemed to plead "just ignore me".  
  
Lenneth shook her head slightly and laughed. It looked like that Wavemaster went down to the last detail, even adjusting the staff so it blended into the area. It was about then that Lenneth noticed that it had been almost a minute since there had been any conversation. Thus, she spoke up again.  
  
"Hey! Anyone there?!" The Wavemaster practically jumped in surprise, then quickly spoke like a frightened rabbit.  
  
"Ah! S-s-s-s-s-s…"  
  
Lenneth sighed, annoyed. She knew little to nothing about this Wavemaster, other than the fact that this one's probably either someone who has trouble in social situations, is a really good role player, or just someone who likes to annoy people. Either way, that's still enough options to confound people, and if there's one thing that still existed on the Internet to this day, it was the amount of people who just seemed to go onto these things to annoy people. Mind you, they didn't tend to last very long on The World, due to a mixture of things.  
  
First, the Crimson Knights, who had recently been disbanded, had usually held in check those who would do nothing but cause complete chaos in The World. However, their leader disbanded the group to go on the "Key of the Twilight" quest, which was, as far as anyone knew, still going.  
  
Secondly, the system administrators themselves felt very close to The World, and would try to defend it against people who are only on to ruin it for others. This had always been the balance in The World, but just the same, there were always more people who came to annoy and frustrate people.  
  
Just the same, Lenneth assumed that it was the first option, rather than the final one.  
  
"Hey, calm down… I just thought you were doing it on purpose or something… anyways, what's your name?"  
  
"Ahh… it didn't say on the message?" Upon hearing that, Lenneth laughed slightly.  
  
"Oh, this isn't like the ancient systems, where it just displays it as text with a name beside it. You should know that yourself. After all, do I have 'Lenneth' next to my character whenever I speak?"  
  
"…Actually, I thought nothing showing up was a bug…" There was a period of awkward silence as Lenneth froze up in surprise. There's no way anyone would actually think that, right? Last she heard, there hadn't been a system that gave things in text for years. In fact, the only time she'd ever seen such systems was in a pre-twilight electronics museum. Finally, Lenneth spoke up again.  
  
"…Anyways, what's your name? You STILL haven't told me what it was."  
  
"Umm… it's Misakichi…"  
  
"Misakichi? That's an odd name… what is it, Japanese? Korean? Chinese? Some country around there…"  
  
"…Japanese…"  
  
"And would you stop pausing in conversations so much? It gets annoying after a while."  
  
"Ah! Sorry!"  
  
"Anyways… if you want to join my party for a while, just send me an invitation, know that you know my member address." It took Misakichi a moment before responding.  
  
"You mean… like this?" Misakichi spoke, as an invitation message appeared on Lenneth's screen.  
  
"Yeah, just like that and…" A moment later, the two had become one single party.  
  
"Now we're a team! Now go over to the Chaos Gate and type 'Bursting Quiet Aqua Zone'. I know it sounds odd, but you'll probably get used to this after a while."  
  
With that, Misakichi walked over to the Chaos Gate, raised her staff, and two rings surrounded her. A moment later, she disappeared. Lenneth smiled slightly, and followed suit, raising her own weapon to the skies before the Chaos Gate, and disappearing from the area.  
  
**Hidden Forbidden Nothingness (Theta Server)**  
  
His two "allies", as they called themselves smiled menacingly. Their weapons glinting in the little light there was. Of course, Meirkan knew they were idiots, trying to betray him of all people, but hey, it was their characters. This Twin Blade came here expecting them to, and he was going to have a lot of fun getting rid of them.  
  
"Newbies, huh." He stated matter-of-factly. He of course knew that they had lied to him the second he saw their characters. Of course, they didn't even realize how blatantly obvious the truth was to anyone that was paying attention.  
  
"Dead wrong! We're Player Killers, and YOU'VE fallen into our trap." The Heavy Axeman spoke, covered in menacing black armour. His partner in crime, a Twin Blade with Dark Green hair and Green eyes, had clearly been trying to go for the same look as the famous Player Killer Sora, but had in fact failed miserably. It was pathetic, really. Meirkan, on the other hand, had been around as long as Sora had, if not even longer.  
  
Meirkan and Sora held an antipathy for each other, which constantly put them into battles. Of course, there was rarely ever any clear winner, much like the tales of ninja told in the past. He had killed Sora's character, and Sora had killed his character, an even 100 times by now.   
  
Of course, as Meirkan knew, Sora was gone forever, so one less annoying bug was out of the way. After all, few recovered from the might of the one thing possibly more powerful than the One Sin event monster. But now wasn't the time for such thoughts, it was time to finish off the insects right in front of him.  
  
"Well, then I guess you'll have to catch me first, wouldn't you?" With that, he took off running. To an inexperienced person such as these Player Killers, it would look just like a retreat. However, Meirkan had other plans. Both of the Player Killers took off after him, with the Twin Blade taking the lead of the group, being the faster of the two.  
  
After about a minute, Meirkan found what he was looking for: a magic portal. He slowed down for a moment, just long enough for the Sora impersonator to catch him, and allowing the Heavy Axeman to almost catch up. He carefully dodged two strikes as the Twin Blade's Katar sped towards him like claws of a ravenous dinosaur, instilled with the speed of a diving hawk.  
  
Noticing that the Heavy Axeman was almost in place, Meirkan decided it was time. He charged ahead, moving at an inexplicable speed towards the magic portal, then jumping towards and rebounding off of it before it completed opening, leaving him behind the Heavy Axeman, with several rather annoyed Mimics trotting out of the Magic Portal, preparing to use their accursed ability on the unsuspecting Sora impersonator.   
  
The Twin Blade didn't have time to retreat before the Mimic had confused his character, sending him charging towards his ally, the Heavy Axeman.   
  
The Heavy Axeman, not confused himself, and of course not being smart enough to stock up on curative items, was unable to do anything but run from his own ally turned nemesis. Of course, eventually one of them would die, and that's when Meirkan would strike.  
  
"The system doesn't like you Player Killers." He laughed to himself. "The World hasn't liked a single Player Killer since Sora."  
  
Upon finishing his speech, he noticed his knives glow an eerie green glow.  
  
"So, Skeith is on the move again… Looks like I don't have time to have fun with these idiots…" With that, he stood up, and two golden rings surrounded him, as he disappeared out of the area.  
  
**Bursting Silent Aqua Zone (Delta Server)**  
  
Misakichi looked around the area, in awe about how it all looked.  
  
"Wow! It's just like I'm there! This is great!" This was SO the kind of technology she was expecting to see: stuff that was so impressive that made the military want to take control of it. However, the CC Corporation was smart, and despite how high-tech it was, it had managed to stay out of the hands of any country. Their home base may have been in the United States, but the CC Corporation was a new age global company.  
  
In fact, The World had originated in Germany and expanded from there into the first worldwide network game since the Twilight of the New Gods, from her understanding. It wasn't the quality of role-players or anything else that brought her here: It was The World's past, and its technology that incited her to join it.  
  
"Uhh… you might want to watch out if you're going for First-Person mode… you won't be able to target anything outside your vision, you know." Lenneth called, prompting a nod from Misakichi.  
  
"I know but… can't I keep it this way? I just want to feel the experience as much as I can…" Lenneth responded by laughing.  
  
"I know how you feel, everyone's like that at the start... this place seems so overwhelming when you first come on, like the game itself is practically a world… In fact, quite a few people have gotten completely addicted to The World, and think of the characters on here as real people, rather than just characters being acted by other players… that's probably not very healthy though…"  
  
"Shouldn't we start fighting monsters though? I mean, that's why we're here, right?" Misakichi interrupted, followed by a blink from Lenneth. It seemed to her that Misakichi was suddenly acting like a completely different person.  
  
"Uhh… I guess we could, but are you sure you're really ready for a battle?" Before Lenneth even finished saying this, Misakichi had charged off towards a nearby Magic Circle, causing Lenneth to simply sigh and chase after her.  
  
As Misakichi got close enough to the Magic Portal, it expanded for a moment before disappearing, revealing 10 goblins. Yes, they were wimpy creatures, but there enough of them to give any newbie party trouble. The goblins immediately began a charge of their own, aimed directly as the defenceless Wavemaster.  
  
Misakichi lifted her staff into the air, and the goblins' movements slowed as a spell came into effect beneath them. Finally, the goblins' movements stopped as a burst of flames shot up from under their feet, inflicting the ethereal counter known as "Damage Check" upon them, sapping the life from their bodies.  
  
However, as with all things magical, the spell eventually ended, and the goblins began their charge anew, burnt but alive – and because of that, very annoyed. Misakichi raised her staff again, but nothing happened. She blinked slightly. Before realizing what happened.  
  
"What? I'm out of MP already?"  
  
The goblins took heart in the fact transmitted to them by the wind, and with renewed vigour began their hunt for the head of the Wavemaster. Misakichi began backing off, but was knowledgeable enough to realize that there was no chance of her character being able to outrun them. She was prepared to accept death, and try to win next time – after she got a game over.  
  
The goblins had finally caught up to her, and with the low survivability that accompanied Wavemasters, she would undoubted be dead within a few seconds. One goblin jumped into the air, and slashed its claw downwards towards Misakichi's head, when a spear plunged through its body, causing its body to seemingly turn to stone.  
  
The remaining goblins turned to their new opponent, who was desperately trying to pull the dead body of a goblin off of her spear. Lenneth cursed slightly, and silently promised herself that from here on, she'd be more careful with her spear, before being surrounded by goblins. This would undoubtedly be her most embarrassing death ever – a level 5 Long Arm killed by a horde of Goblins… her friends would never let her forget this.  
  
The goblins once again began to slow, and Lenneth quickly looked around to see what was going on, to see Misakichi raising her staff towards the sky, calling down another spell. Lenneth silently thanked MP regeneration, and charged through a gap that would have been unavailable to her if the Goblins weren't moving too slowly to do anything.  
  
A burst of flames filled the area Lenneth had previously been in, this time finishing off the goblins once and for all. Lenneth took the opportunity to rest a bit, with the exercise showing an effect on her character. Misakichi too looked exhausted, probably from the exertion of using so many spells when she's barely capable of casting one.  
  
"It's… amazing how much… using too much magic… can take out of a character." Misakichi gasped between breaths.  
  
Lenneth, now having no enemies to deal with and having had an opportunity to catch her breath, went about the strenuous task of removing the one remaining goblin from her staff. It appeared to have connected to the spear so well, that it was actually staying on as an accessory until it was removed…  
  
When Lenneth finally managed to dislodge the greyed-out golem, it dropped to the floor like a rag-doll, then began to dissipate into thousands of tiny grey dots. Originally, this was caused by a bug in the pixel-erasing program, but the people playing The World during the beta test thought the effect was pretty cool, thinking that it symbolized something like the monster's soul being reborn, so it remained.  
  
As the miniature dots floated towards the skies, the monitor suddenly filled with static. The screen returned to normal a moment later, giving both characters opportunity to wonder what was going on. A moment later, the static returned, and their screens faded to black, leaving only a bright red message on their screen.  
  
**ERROR**  
  
  
  
A/N #1: There were originally appendicies, but seeing as how I figure anyone reading this version knows a bit about both the game .hack and .hack//SIGN, I've removed them.   
  
A/N#2: I'm not sure about the dates, but I'm pretty sure that the game .hack takes place in the year 2010... If not, I've got my timeline really messed up. _  
  
A/N#3: Yes, for some reason, I saw fit to add "exhaustion levels" to The World. No idea why, I just sort of felt like it. ^_^  



	2. AWAKENING

**.hack//GAIDEN**   
  
**AWAKENING**   
  
**Root Town: Mac Anu (Delta Server)**   
  
Misakichi sighed as she returned to the town. Despite all that work of killing an army of Goblins, it was as though it had never happened. This was why she hated starting a character… they always start off so WEAK... and, because she hadn't had a chance to save her character, she would be on level one ten goblins longer.   
  
There was at least a bit of good news, though: the game DID save Lenneth's Member Address to her character. Thus, they would be able to band up again a little later. For now, though, she decided to do some of the shopping she neglected to do during her first run into an area.   
  
She turned around in circles a couple of times, before getting her bearings and heading towards the magic shop. However, the fact that she had to cross the entire town to get there, meant that she managed to gain a few good bits of information, that she could have gained access to had she bothered to check the message boards or her own mail today.   
  
First, it wasn't just her that was affected by the crash. It apparently hit all of The World's servers simultaneously. Obviously, a lot of people were annoyed that all the hard work they did that day was down the drain because they didn't save when they had a chance.   
  
The second bit of useful information was that The World had most of its servers disabled, as they attempted to identify what went wrong with the servers. Of course, this also meant that a lot of high-level characters were in areas where they would gain little to no experience.   
  
The third, and probably most interesting bit of information, was the appearance of monsters that apparently had infinite HP. They had started appearing a little before the crash, but apparently, they became especially frequent after The World crashed.   
  
Some people had theorized that in fact, they didn't have Infinite HP, and it just appeared to be as such. Said people also theorized that the purpose of these "invincible" monsters was one of two things: One, that they were placed on these servers to give the higher-levelled players something to do.   
  
The other possibility, they said, was that these monsters were in fact the start of The World's next plotline. They would have primarily shown up in the higher-levelled areas, but the crashing of most of the servers meant that they had to get it all done on the two servers that were actually in working condition: Delta and Theta. However, they also said that these monsters probably would have appeared on these servers anyways, to give the feeling that all of The World was in danger of being destroyed by these beasts.   
  
In other words, most people thought that this plotline would allow more people to become as famous as Balmung and Orca. No one really thought of it as much else. Of course, why would they? The World is just a game after all. The World might seem to be in danger, but it's all an attempt to get people even more hooked to the game than they already are - after all, isn't that the objective of a game company?   
  
Once she arrived at the magic shop, she was of course greeted by the owner of it - obviously, the owner of the shop was an NPC, so of course, the owner of the shop didn't have a whole lot to say, except for greetings, lists of items, prices… that sort of thing. Despite all that happened over the past section of time, it appeared that the AI's of shopkeepers had not changed much since the days of Baldur's Gate. In fact, truth be told, the Baldur's Gate Shop-keeper AI was probably more advanced, considering that that system could interpret people getting caught trying to steal items, something that wasn't even possible to try in The World.   
  
Misakichi shook her head a couple times. She had to ignore things like Artificial Intelligence, and see what spell scrolls she could get… after all, depending on just the powers of one staff would wind up being a major weakness for a Wavemaster. Thus, she began looking through the shatter proof cases and examining the spell scrolls. However, she ultimately found something strange.   
  
"Hey, what's this?" She asked, pointing to a case with a book in it, rather than a scroll. The shopkeeper, noticing her interest, created a magical illusion of the book on the counter before saying what it was.   
  
"This is an installation book. This particular one is the Book of Awakening. It makes a person immune to 'spirit' status effects, like confusion and sleep. Also, you can use spells to cure these status effects for no MP cost. Like all installation books however, you can only use one, and they WILL permanently change how you look."   
  
Upon hearing that last statement, Misakichi briefly wondered what kind of change in character skins would be caused by using a book like that. However, the shop keeper apparently wasn't done yet.   
  
"People are only capable of finding one book in The World, as if some strange magic controls whether or not they can ever discover it. I didn't even know I HAD this book until you saw it. For being able to find it, you can have it, free of charge!"   
  
Misakichi blinked at that, having no idea what exactly just happened. Just the same, she had managed to gain an installation book, without even trying to find one. From what she heard, this was insanely lucky, so in a mixture of shock and delight, she graciously accepted the book.   
  
"If each character's only capable of finding one installation book, then these things must be pretty rare… if I want to, I can probably trade this for some good equipment… but do I really want to lose something so rare?"   
  
Surrounded in indecisiveness, but intelligent enough to know how rare it is, she quickly headed off to another section of town, whereupon she was greeted by another shop-keeper: This one, known as the Recorder.   
  
"Hello! What would you like?" Misakichi blinked slightly, and examined all the options available to her at this place.   
  
"…What do you think? All I can do here is save." The Recorder seemed to appraise her, as if looking for something about her, than began writing something on a parchment.   
  
"Just give me a moment to write down your story so far…" The Recorder stated, while writing. Misakichi's response was to blink at this, amazed at how much the current saving system was like the "old-school" RPG's style of doing things.   
  
After a few moments, the Recorder gave a victorious cry of "Done!" followed by telling Misakichi to go away and let him move on to the next "customer". No money was exchanged though, so the phrase "customer" could technically only be used loosely, but that didn't seem to bother THIS shop-owner. In fact, this shop keeper seemed to relish in the fact that he was taking so many notes down… oddly enough, he seemed to be working faster with the male characters, and slower with the female characters.   
  
She didn't know HOW the CC Corporation managed to program THAT in, but it made her wonder that maybe, the AI's of the shop-keepers had in fact been improved to some bizarre level, wherein they do their job, but also seem to have their own personalities…   
  
She shook her head again, attempting to shake the thoughts of Artificial Intelligence and other things - her opinion of these sorts of things was, if it was the perfect artificial intelligence, one wouldn't even know it's a computer. Of course, just the same, she tended to think about these things too much for her to actually view them as not part of a computer - and promptly crashed into someone.   
  
Being the lighter of the two, Misakichi was of course the one to be flattened. More surprising than being hit by someone because you weren't paying attention though, was what she was hit by - Another female Wavemaster, wearing white robes, a rabbit hat with a red plus in the middle of it, and pink hair. Indefinitely an unusual combination, but as always seemed to be the case in The World, it somehow managed to work. It also made her stand out among other Wavemasters as well.   
  
Of course, after the corrective standing was accomplished, apologies were given. As was her nature, Misakichi started first.   
  
"Ahh! I'm so sorry, I wasn't paying attention to what I was doing! I was thinking about weird things like AI's! I'm sorry!" She shouted, bowing as many times as possible. Of course, this whole thing had managed to attract a bit of a crowd, as one would expect if someone shouted apologies in the middle of a crowded area.   
  
The other Wavemaster, trapped with having to deal with Misakichi's apologies, was unable to apologize herself, and did her best to try to make it as little of a scene as possible.   
  
"No, it's not your fault! Just… stop apologizing, you're getting everyone to stare at us… wait, is that your book?" She said, before pointing at the book that Misakichi had managed to drop upon being hit. Misakichi in turn looked at where the other wavemaster was pointing, and realized that it was indeed her installation book that had fallen, and quickly grabbed it, putting it back in her inventory. The other Wavemaster suddenly seemed a lot more excited about talking with Misakichi after that.   
  
"I can't believe you've already got an install book! It took me forever to find mine! I just love collecting those things! How about you? Are you going to keep those, or would you be willing to let me have it?!" The other Wavemaster chirped excitedly.   
  
"I'm sorry, but… I'd like to keep this for at least a little while longer… at least until I decide whether I'm going to use it or not..." Upon hearing that, the other Wavemaster began yet another soliloquy.   
  
"No problem, I know what you mean exactly! I know that when I got mine I was really excited! I couldn't decide whether to use it or not! I had such a hard time deciding, but I said 'I won't use one until I have every single kind of book in existence!' Oh, by the way! Here!" With that, the Wavemaster handed Misakichi a business card, and she promptly read it.   
  
"Your character name's Mistrel?"   
  
"Yep! I'm Mistrel, the Wavemaster obsessed with collecting stuff! One day, I'll manage to collect every rare item in the game! Including all these books! Anyways, how about we join a party? I know a great place that I've been meaning to check out, but don't want to go in there alone, in case there's anything big and mean in there!" Misakichi, unused to Mistrel's quick speech, blinked for a few moments before everything she said was interpreted.   
  
"Umm… ok, I guess I could help you out there, but… I'm a bit of a newbie, so I don't know how much help I can be…"   
  
"Great! Meet me at the Chaos Gate after you're finished getting ready, and we'll beat up whatever monsters are in there! The best wait to gain levels is to beat as many monsters as possible anyways! See you at the Chaos Gate!" Mistrel was gone before Misakichi could interpret what Mistrel had said. Misakichi thus talked to herself as she said the following:   
  
"…Well, I don't have anything to prepare for anyways, seeing as how I don't really have any money, so…" Noticing that Mistrel was gone, she stopped in mid-sentence and let out a confused remark of "…Na?"   
  
**Bursting Silent Aqua Zone : B4 (Delta Server)**   
  
Lenneth looked towards the assisting Wavemaster gratefully, as said Wavemaster sighed. The goblins, all trapped within the magic circle, stood no chance as a burst of brambles erupted around them and spinning in a tornado, ripping apart their corpses into the miniscule bits of pixels that they originated from. With their screens switching to neutral, indicating that no monsters were around, Lenneth finally spoke to the Wavemaster.   
  
"I'm grateful that someone as famous as you is willing to help me out, Alue-" The Wavemaster, Alue immediately cut her off.   
  
"Ehh… I do my part to help out Newbies occasionally, but… this is too easy… if my fans heard I was wasting my time fighting a bunch of Goblins…"   
  
Alue held the skinset of the average Wavemaster. In fact, it was him that made this skinset famous: Many people who chose to be a Wavemaster wanted to follow in Alue's example, and us such, many of them chose the same skinset as him.   
  
Of course, people were somehow still able to identify him, the ORIGINAL Wavemaster, despite the fact that one in every five Wavemasters looked just like him. He didn't understand HOW they pulled that off, but fans seemed to have an inate skill for finding such people. After all, it was like that for almost everyone famous in The World, except for maybe Balmung and Orca, and the only reason they got away with it was because their skinset was impossible to get.   
  
Alue sighed again, wishing he could find one of those unique books that change your skinset, and give you special abilities or something. At least it would be better than everyone trying to look like him… Finally, he spoke to Lenneth again.   
  
"Anyways, the Gott Statue should be in the next room. You can get all the treasures from it, because whatever's in there won't be helpful to me at all." In response, Lenneth thanked Alue, and headed into the next room. The screen for both of the players faded out, as their PC's began loading what was in the next room. When it finally loaded up, however, even Alue was surprised. In fact, he was the first one to say anything.   
  
"What the?! What's a Magic Circle doing in the statue room?!" The Magic Circle responded to his query in the only way it knew how: spitting out a monster. However, this monster in particular was far from normal, and once again Alue shouted in surprise.   
  
"A House Golem on Delta Server?! And what's up with its HP? It's like what happens when a computer tries to access numbers beyond the numbers allowed…" Lenneth, being the valkyrie that she was, threw herself towards the behemothic golem before her, stabbing her spear through the air and at the beast's neck. Upon hitting the neck, however, the spear snapped in two, with not even part of it piercing the monster's thick flesh. The annoyed monster, in response, simply swatted Lenneth, like one would do to a fly. With the force from the swat, Lenneth was sent away from the battle and into a wall, with her body exploding into the ghostly form that was the "death" status upon contact.   
  
The house golem seemed to smirk evilly as it advanced upon the Wavemaster, safe in the knowledge that there was no way for even a Wavemaster as powerful as Alue would be able to hurt him in any way. Alue frantically looked around, but there was no escape. The door, as per the new version, had locked itself as soon as the monster had popped out.   
  
With nowhere to go, he was trapped. The house golem had reached the defenceless Wavemaster, and paused a moment, as if trying to decide what to do. Then, in one quick moment, the character Alue was stomped out of existence by the foot of an invincible house golem, bringing the dreaded Game Over screen to the entire party.   
  
**Despairing Endless Inferno (Delta Server)**   
  
Misakichi fell forwards a little, exhausted. It was at this time that she spoke to Mistrel, gasping between words.   
  
"Are we almost at the dungeon yet? I don't know how many more battles like this I can take…" Of course, Mistrel handled it the way she always did.   
  
"Don't worry don't worry, I'm here to keep you alive if things get REALLY bad! Besides, where's the fun if there aren't any battles? We're almost at the dungeon, we just have to get a little further! The dungeon's really cool, you know! It seems like you're in the veins of some giant monster!"   
  
Misakichi paused and blinked slightly before the translation kicked in.   
  
"That's… a good thing?"   
  
"Yep yep! It really enhances the effect of the world! Fighting inside a dead gigantic monster, with lesser monsters crawling all over it, while you hunt for whatever treasure it ate! You can't get much better than that! See? There's the dungeon over there!"   
  
There was another brief pause before Misakichi actually understood and looked in the direction Mistrel was pointing… and gaped in awe as a gigantic face that looked like a vampire gaped with its mouth open, the fingers of the creature's hands barely above ground, constantly twitching, as though trying to escape. Misakichi fell backwards in disgust before talking.   
  
"What is that?! That thing is…" Mistrel cut Misakichi off, yet again.   
  
"That's the dungeon! We head in through the mouth, and work our way down to the statue at the bottom floor of its body… but then, considering the way that the body works, maybe that isn't the bottom, but really the brain or something."   
  
"Umm… I don't know if it's such a good idea to go in there…"   
  
"What are you talking about?! There's rare treasure in there! Let's go!" With that, Mistrel charged into the dungeon, causing the screen to black out for both of the people in the party. When the screen recovered, Misakichi found herself within the dungeon as well.   
  
**Despairing Endless Inferno: B4 (Delta Server)**   
  
Another monster portal opened up, spitting a miniscule 14 Goblins. They smirked as they advanced on him, but Meirkan simply sighed. Another pointless thing to waste his time in this area, when what he really wanted to find, to see, would only be spending a bit longer in this area before moving on. Sure, it was nice that only things that wouldn't pose any threat to him at all appeared, but just the same… He pulled out a new set of weapons: two half-circular blades, which fit onto his hands like knuckles, where he instantly placed them, before spinning into a circle, spraying sparks and pixels everywhere as his blades flew through the bodies of the goblins, returning them to their natural form of zero, as their pixels floated towards the ceiling and dissipated. He stepped forward as the doors opened, allowing him forwards.   
  
If he moved fast enough, he would find Her. The most important character in the world since the One Sin event… The one he claimed as his own. The stairs downwards loomed before him, and he switched back to his normal weapons, and threw one into the sky. It floated in the air for a moment, before pointing behind him, towards the area he came from.   
  
"So, I went right past Her did I? Time's probably running out… soon enough, there won't even be a point to being here anymore…" He muttered to himself before turning around, and heading out.   
  
**Despairing Endless Inferno: B3 (Delta Server)**   
  
Misakichi looked around, confused. This was starting to really bother her, this… this lack of monsters. No Magic Circles, lots of treasure chests left completely unopened… the only time there WERE monsters were when the group ran into a dead-end somewhere, and with Mistral's power, they weren't especially challenging. Just the same, the lack of monsters hit her as very unsettling, as though something was really wrong here.   
  
"Umm… Mistral, why aren't there any monsters around here?" She asked. Of course, Mistral just brushed it off like it was nothing.   
  
"Because we chose a good dungeon! This dungeon doesn't have many monsters, but has lots of chests! Haven't you noticed that too? We hit the jackpot! Little to no enemies exist here!" Mistral paused a moment, before continuing.   
  
"But come to think of it, there were a lot more when I went here on my own… Ah! The stairs! Now, time to head down to B4! Just a few more floors to go!" With that, Mistral once again charged down the stairs, dragging Misakichi along with her.   
  
Of course, as with the rest of the dungeon,, this floor seemed empty as well, with not even a single goblin around to impede their progress. It was as though the dungeon itself forbade anything to attack them, as though the monsters had been digested in the body of this creature called a dungeon.   
  
However, as the art of dungeon generation states, they eventually came to a 4-way intersection. The stopped here, giving themselves a moment to rest. However, truth be told, they were indecisive about where to go next. By the nature of a 4-way intersection, they could go in every direction on a compass. Naturally, this prospect would make some people indecisive, especially in a group, wherein each would prefer to go in a different direction. However, after a few moments of discussion, the group eventually chose to head off to the right, hopefully leading the way to the bottom of the dungeon, wherein their prize of a rare item awaited.   
  
As they entered the door, said doors slammed shut behind them, trapping them inside the room until the Magic Circle held in the center was released. Naturally, this was followed by Mistral and Misakichi making a brave charge towards the Magic Circle, which hungrily awaited their presence. Once within range, the Magic Circle did what it did best, and spat out 4 mimics before disappearing, leaving no escape for our brave warriors.   
  
However, mimics too had their own specialty, and they took great pleasure in taking advantage of that specialty as Mistral summoned forth several balls of fire, directly into one of them, causing its wooden armor to burst into flames, igniting the beast into one chest-shapped flame. The flame soon went out, as the mimic's pixels floated off to the sky. One of the other mimics was enraged by this act of flaming death, and decided to give Mistral a firsthand taste of the true power of the mimic species. In one quick cast, Mistral soon became Misakichi's worst enemy, having been the victim of a confuse spell.   
  
The next time Mistral wielded her staff, it was towards ally, not enemy. A circle appeared on the ground, with Misakichi in the center of it. In a moment, everything Misakichi saw was an inferno of flames, spinning in a form similar to a tornado. The flames burnt cloth and flesh alike, searing Misakichi's health at a frightening pace. She quickly bounded through her inventory, looking for something to help her out of this situation, like a Restorative. However, this scan turned out useless, as she silently cursed at herself for not going to the item shop even once.   
  
One last scan turned up her salvation: A Key Item Installation Book: The Book of Awakening. In desperation, she quickly used it, and as she watched, the inferno slowed around her. Though the flames would barb at her, for some reason, no HP damage occurred. However, by this same token, she was trapped, unable to move as the book modified her character data. Once the inferno peeled away, spell finally out of fuel, Misakichi made her own move. A quick cast of her own spell allowed Mistral back her freedom.   
  
Able to control what she could do again, Mistral took great pleasure in individually annihilating every single one of the creatures, which held not enough attack power to even be able to kill a Wavemaster.   
  
With the monsters defeated, Mistral began speaking again.   
  
"Hey! I didn't know you had a spell that could cure confusion! What's its name again? I can never remember the name of that spell! Anyways, good job, you got us both out of that mess pretty well, didn't you? I wouldn't want my own spells used on me… Oh! You used the book didn't you? Too bad… I thought I'd be able to get it from you… oh well, I'll just find someone else that has one! For now though, let's head back and find the bottom!" Misakichi, as always, looked clueless for a moment before nodding and following the more experienced Wavemaster.   
  
The rest of their trip on this floor was rather uneventful, with the noticable lack of monsters yet again, allowing Misakichi enough time to get extremely psyched out before the staircase to the next floor appeared, allowing then to the lowest floor of the dungeon, known only as B5.   
  
Unlike the previous floors, the layout of B5 was surprisingly simple, though it required a person to go through several "rooms", which held only two entrance and exits. In other words, this floor, though sprawled with curves, was more or less a one-way line, with only one or two rooms that went out of this fashion. However, the auto-map function allowed a person an interesting discovery, which Mistral pointed out.   
  
"Hey! This floor's designed like the way blood pumps through the heart! Isn't that strange? Well, we'll probably find our treasure and a spot on the way out, and it splits off into the center. That'll probably be the next room, really."   
  
Sure enough, the next room held three exits, one which would head directly into the center of the heart. However, something else greeted them as well: One of the long forgotten Magic Circles.   
  
This time, the Magic Circle seemed fully aware that it was the last of its kind that could oppose these adventurers, and decided to spare nothing. The Magic Circle expanded, and as always, a single monster appeared in the center of it. The Magic Circle, its job done, disappeared out of existance, allowing our heroines to see the enemy before them: Yet another mimic. This dungeon seemed to like mimics, by the looks of things. However, this was no ordinary Mimic, it was a M|{|( K|[8. What that actually meant, was probably Mimic King, but who knows what the corrupted data originated from. Indeed, before them was one of the strange monsters that held infinite HP, a Virus-Infected piece of the program that was the world, with its data corrupted and made buggy. The proper name for these creatures would be argued among the players of The World for a long time, but ultimately they would come down to two nicknames for them: Virus Bugs and Data Bugs. Later, this would be further separated, based on where the monsters appeared: Data Bugs would be actual monsters in the dungeon infected, while Virus Bugs would be when something from a completely different area appears, fully infected. However, at the moment, it was simply referred to as "Another Mimic".   
  
It was Mistral who gave it that name, completely unprepared for its power. Mistral, thinking it was just that, cast a simple flame spell upon it, and backed away in shock as the attack simply bounced off, as a golden shield appeared around the mimic. With that, Mistral decided to state the obvious.   
  
"What? That Mimic's got Magic Tolerance! Mimics aren't supposed to have that!" Of course, the mimic, being immune to magic, had nothing to fear from a band of Wavemasters, the only class whose main focus was on magic. Thus, it could choose who to eat first, and oh, it would be satisfying to eat them slowly, and painfully. The two Wavemasters made a dash for the closest exit, but the exit chose to ignore their plight, and closed itself. There was no hope for our adventurers, they were, as far as could be told, doomed.   
  
The mimic, finally confident in its decision, jumped through the air with swiftness physically impossible for such strangely shaped creatures. Its jump through the air ended with a large bite into Mistral's neck, literally tearing off the head. Fortunately, the gruesome sight of this was quickly replaced with a ghostly visage of Mistral, quite annoyed over how easily her character had died. The mimic then took a moment to behold its next prey, before preparing for another killing jump. Misakichi, unable to take the idea of watching her own death, closed her eyes and waited for he attack to come, but it didn't. As the mimic soared through the air, the sound of metal on wood and metal resounded through the sky, prompting her to open her eyes. Before her was a Twin Blade she had never met before, quickly unleashing a barrage of techniques previous non-existant to her. The Twin Blade, noticing that she was finally paying attention, yelled at her.   
  
"Well? What are you waiting for? Go on to the Statue Room! I'll take care of this thing!" Misakichi decided to take the advice, and as she neared the exit, the doors opened, allowing her and her ally's ghost into the room. As the door finished opening, the Twin Blade quickly threw an item through the door, before going back to his own battle.   
  
Inside the "Statue Room" was actually surprisingly small. The room itself was only half-available to someone who couldn't fly, with the ground for the other half lowered almost to cliff-size length, to allow for the enormous statue that stood within it. Directly in front of the statue, on the last bit of ground on the accessable level, a chest sat, golden and encrusted with all sorts of diamonds, crystals, and all around valuable gems. Of course, at this exact moment, Mistral was more interested in the other item that had rolled in, and pointed it out!   
  
"Hey! Look! A ressurect! Could you grab that and revive me with it? You'd better revive me before you open the chest, or I'll haunt you!" Misakichi decided to take Mistral's advice and be done with it, rather than test the haunting threat. Thus, in a moment, Mistral's transparent body returned to a full-fleshed body once more. Mistral, fully revived, decided now it was time to focus on the chest.   
  
"Now then! Seeing as how you're the one that actually survived the dungeon, you open the chest!" Thus, Misakichi opened the chest. Within the chest were three things: a set of three stars, hooked together, with each star made of a different type of gem, a ruby-encrusted staff, and a golden statue of a Grunty, otherwise known as a Puchiguso. Mistral took her own scan of the items available, and chose to pick up the statue.   
  
"Hey! I hear these things are pretty rare! This will be great for me, you can have everything else! Oh, and here, take this!" Mistral said, before handing Misakichi a strange musical instrument she'd never seen before. Mistral, seeing Misakichi's confusion, explained.   
  
"That's a Sprite Ocarina. You blow in it, and it teleports you back outside the dungeon so you can head back to town! See you!" With that, Mistral pulled out another sprite ocarina, blew into it, and disappeared. Misakichi, still a little confused, gathered up everything from the chest before bringing the Sprite Ocarina to her lips and blowing into it, which was promptly followed from her disappearing as well.   
  
In the room just outside of that, however, a battle was still going on. Meirkan knew of course that it WAS one of the bugs that had quickly begun to appear with alarming frequency, and he was doing his job of battling it. The Mimic itself held little of its original body still visible by this point, its entire body seemingly one neon-green scar holding itself together. Of course, as Meirkan knew, this thing was almost dead. The Mimic made one last attempt to bite Meirkan, but Meirkan took this as his opportunity to attack. Using his knives, he plunged deep inside the chest-like creature's body, until they stuck out the other side. He left them inside there, and quickly kicked the mimic, allowing himself a backflip away from the creature, as well as its teeth. With his next move, he jumped at it again, landing on its large body, closing its mouth shut. He then stepped off of its body and, holding the sharp ends of his blades, pushed them upwards. The force of the push, coupled with the amount of damage the mimic had already taken, split the mimic is half, as its upper body flew off. Once the upper body hit the ground, what was left of the dead Virus-infected monster disappeared into neon pixels, filling the sky. With the enemy dead, Meirkan simply returned his weapons to their normal position, and stood up.   
  
"Is this what you wanted… I met the one you wanted me too, if that's what you wanted, but… why do you keep running? I'd be able to hold Skeith off long enough…"   
  
**Root Town: Mac Anu (Delta Server)**   
  
Misakichi, lengthy quest done, spent her time thinking, but it was really a rather simple thing she was thinking about at this point.   
  
"Maybe I should e-mail that Mistral, and thank her for letting me go with her on that quest. Hey, wait! The member address should have her e-mail address on it! I'll just check that out!" However, a quick scan gave her information she didn't want to know of, and as such, with all bad news, it had to be said.   
  
"Ahh… I LOST her Member Address? Did I drop it in the dungeon or something? …In which case I'll never find it! I made a new friend, now I'm never going to meet her again…"   
  
  
**_Author's Notes:_** Whee... Finally done Part 2! I feel like I've been working on it forever... But eh, it's done now, so no problem, right? This one's actually larger than the first part: Annoyingly enough, larger than Notepad can handle on one of the computers I was using. -_-;   
  
Anyways though, I quite like this part... But no, Mistrel probably won't be appearing again, sorry Mistrel fans, but... I just put her in there to help build up some of my own characters, sorry again!   
  
Besides that, though, I think this one was quite nice - and the single largest chapter I've ever written on fanfiction.net - A little over 10 pages, according to Microsoft Word! Whee... I believe that makes this series the largest story I've uploaded to fanfiction.net to date... yeesh.   
  
Anyways, a few of you guys might recognise Alue from the actual game, and well you should. The guy was an NPC in the game, and from my understanding, I portrayed him quite well. While the NPC's don't get a whole lot of importance in the game, I can fit them into my stories no problem, because you don't really get to see what they're doing...   
  
So! Expect a lot more of Alue, as well as some other NPC's... I won't give anything away, but I'm pretty sure A-Kichi will be making an appearance or two later on...   
  
Finally, I'd just like to apologize for all the spelling errors... The reason why they're in there is because I mostly used a public computer to write this, and as such couldn't add character names to databases, so I'd have to listen to it complain over and over about my character names for the entire thing, even AFTER I told it to ignore all cases of that... Anyways, my HTML's home-brewed too, so you'll have to deal with this version until I can get around to remaking my HTML from scratch again. ^_^;   
  
Until next time, cya! 


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